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Sour Grapes
Dec 29, 2002

All you kids out there...

EvanTH posted:

Naturally I don't believe athletes should be sacrificing their health to play a sport, but if that's the reason you want to make something illegal than go ahead and make contact sports illegal (obviously don't do this).

I don't know how "Think of the harm to the athletes!" is even considered a legitimate anti-doping argument, anyone playing competitive sport at a high level is already putting their health and body at a huge risk. There are kids going into the MLB draft that have already had Tommy Johns surgery, hell, even golfers are swinging so hard that they're tearing their bodies apart, let alone all of the [brain] injury problems you pointed out in contact sports.

Does anyone actually work in sports medicine/doping enforcement? I remember listening to an interview with Victor Conte from BALCO and he was pretty insistent that anyone at the top levels of sport is doping and that the enforcement bodies were either incompetent [because the amount of funding doping control receives is dwarfed by the amount of funding the people trying to beat doping controls receive], or complicit.

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peanut-
Feb 17, 2004
Fun Shoe

Sour Grapes posted:

I don't know how "Think of the harm to the athletes!" is even considered a legitimate anti-doping argument, anyone playing competitive sport at a high level is already putting their health and body at a huge risk.

Because once you allow it then the prize goes to the person willing to take it to the most dangerous extreme.

Can you honestly not see a difference between an athlete injuring themselves while playing their sport, and an athlete injecting so much EPO they'll die of a heart failure if they don't wake up to do some extra exercise in the middle of the night?

Byolante
Mar 23, 2008

by Cyrano4747

Sour Grapes posted:

I don't know how "Think of the harm to the athletes!" is even considered a legitimate anti-doping argument, anyone playing competitive sport at a high level is already putting their health and body at a huge risk. There are kids going into the MLB draft that have already had Tommy Johns surgery, hell, even golfers are swinging so hard that they're tearing their bodies apart, let alone all of the [brain] injury problems you pointed out in contact sports.

Does anyone actually work in sports medicine/doping enforcement? I remember listening to an interview with Victor Conte from BALCO and he was pretty insistent that anyone at the top levels of sport is doping and that the enforcement bodies were either incompetent [because the amount of funding doping control receives is dwarfed by the amount of funding the people trying to beat doping controls receive], or complicit.

You are right, we shouldn't prevent athletes from thickening their blood to the point of death, getting cancers from using drugs that have been banned from trial due to their risks or even damaging their body so badly they no longer appear to be the gender they were before they started their doping regime because obviously only the foolhardy would do it and there isn't copious evidence that once one person does it everyone else is forced to follow.

Abner Assington
Mar 13, 2005

For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry god. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now, at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon.

Amen.

Dutchy posted:

The increased risk is literally the only reason I care about and oppose doping. Everything else for me branches off of that point.
The risk and the message that tolerating doping sends to younger athletes in the respective sport (or in MLB's case, not tolerating it but for entirely wrong reasons) are the only reasons I care.

TelekineticBear!
Feb 19, 2009

Sour Grapes posted:

I don't know how "Think of the harm to the athletes!" is even considered a legitimate anti-doping argument, anyone playing competitive sport at a high level is already putting their health and body at a huge risk.

Not everyone reacts to steroids in the same way and the side effects vary from person to person. When an athlete gets less out of a steroid than his counterparts hes going to take more and more or different substances in order to try and achieve the same results causing the increased chance of further health risks. Also a lot of the increased injuries and stuff that occurs from playing sport is as a result of steroid misuse, such as Ronaldo having numerous knee injuries thought largely to be as the direct result of PED abuse

Sour Grapes
Dec 29, 2002

All you kids out there...

peanut- posted:

Because once you allow it then the prize goes to the person willing to take it to the most dangerous extreme.

Can you honestly not see a difference between an athlete injuring themselves while playing their sport, and an athlete injecting so much EPO they'll die of a heart failure if they don't wake up to do some extra exercise in the middle of the night?

How is that different than guys grinding through the playoffs with broken ribs or a running back taking so many pops during a game that he's seeing stars? A perfect example is Pereira being ostensibly knocked unconscious on the field and refusing to be subbed out, it's not like we don't know the serious implications of seemingly minor concussions but people are still okay with that.

Byolante posted:

You are right, we shouldn't prevent athletes from thickening their blood to the point of death, getting cancers from using drugs that have been banned from trial due to their risks or even damaging their body so badly they no longer appear to be the gender they were before they started their doping regime because obviously only the foolhardy would do it and there isn't copious evidence that once one person does it everyone else is forced to follow.

Still don't see how this is significantly different from allowing players to 'walk it off' and putting them back in next play when they should be in the quiet room, or offering scholarships to high school kids for literally ripping their arms apart on the field.


To be clear; I'm pretty agnostic about doping in sports, from everything I've seen out of people involved in doping it seems like it is very pervasive and difficult to police, if the authorities even want to police it in the first place.

Sour Grapes fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jul 2, 2014

peanut-
Feb 17, 2004
Fun Shoe

Sour Grapes posted:

How is that different than guys grinding through the playoffs with broken ribs or a running back taking so many pops during a game that he's seeing stars? A perfect example is Pereira being ostensibly knocked unconscious on the field and refusing to be subbed out, it's not like we don't know the serious implications of seemingly minor concussions but people are still okay with that.

They probably shouldn't be allowed to do most of those things, but they're all examples of stuff players try to avoid even if they still happen.

It would only be a valid analogy if it was a scenario where a baseball player had to break his ribs in order to be competitive in the playoffs.

Sour Grapes
Dec 29, 2002

All you kids out there...

peanut- posted:

They probably shouldn't be allowed to do most of those things, but they're all examples of stuff players try to avoid even if they still happen.

It would only be a valid analogy if it was a scenario where a baseball player had to break his ribs in order to be competitive in the playoffs.

I think the more accurate analogy would be if the players [felt that they] had to play injured, and there are plenty of examples of this (ie; schilling's bloody sock, bergeron's collapsed lung, etc.)

Byolante
Mar 23, 2008

by Cyrano4747

Sour Grapes posted:

Still don't see how this is significantly different from allowing players to 'walk it off' and putting them back in next play when they should be in the quiet room, or offering scholarships to high school kids for literally ripping their arms apart on the field.

Concussion management in contact sports is done a lot better in Australia.

http://www.nrl.com/About/ReferenceCentre/ManagementofConcussioninRugbyLeague/tabid/10798/Default.aspx
http://www.rugby.com.au/tryrugby/administration/ConcussionGuidelines.aspx

The NCAA system is also hilariously terrible and exploitative.

Sour Grapes
Dec 29, 2002

All you kids out there...

Byolante posted:

Concussion management in contact sports is done a lot better in Australia.

http://www.nrl.com/About/ReferenceCentre/ManagementofConcussioninRugbyLeague/tabid/10798/Default.aspx
http://www.rugby.com.au/tryrugby/administration/ConcussionGuidelines.aspx

The NCAA system is also hilariously terrible and exploitative.

But the athletes in the NCAA system are, in a lot of cases, complicit. Because sitting out for two months of your season or having a reputation as being concussion prone will affect your draft position and pro career prospects for a lot of sports. I don't know what kind of money a pro rugby player stands to make, but I'm willing to bet it's peanuts compared to an NFL/NHL deal.

Sour Grapes fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jul 2, 2014

Jordan7hm
Feb 17, 2011




Lipstick Apathy
It seems to me like it would be a lot safer to allow doping but have actual doctors monitoring what athletes are doing to their bodies, recording the effects, and publishing both the positive and negative effects so that people have a better idea of the actual benefits and risks, as opposed to the "every drug will literally give you cancer and kill you" risks that anti-doping people seem to bring up.

This really does get into the arguments around drug legalization / criminalization on a wider scale though.

TelekineticBear!
Feb 19, 2009

Jordan7hm posted:

It seems to me like it would be a lot safer to allow doping but have actual doctors monitoring what athletes are doing to their bodies

Doctors are already monitoring steroid use in athletes, as they're the ones giving them the drugs in many cases

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.
also i think doping is much less of a moral issue and much more of an issue as to why people are interested in sport in the first place.

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
I read an article I was linked to on here, I don't think in the last doping thread though, by a guy who was one of the leaders in developing and selling the gear to athletes after he'd been arrested by the FBI for it. I don't suppose anyone knows what I'm talking about or where to find it? I think I originally found it related to boxing but I can't remember any more. It was a really interesting interview where he talked about how athletes don't piss hot, they piss stupid because its so easy to pass a test. Also talked about how the rich athletes would get the really expensive, impossible to trace PEDs while poorer athletes just got standard steroids.

Sour Grapes
Dec 29, 2002

All you kids out there...

Jose posted:

I read an article I was linked to on here, I don't think in the last doping thread though, by a guy who was one of the leaders in developing and selling the gear to athletes after he'd been arrested by the FBI for it. I don't suppose anyone knows what I'm talking about or where to find it? I think I originally found it related to boxing but I can't remember any more. It was a really interesting interview where he talked about how athletes don't piss hot, they piss stupid because its so easy to pass a test. Also talked about how the rich athletes would get the really expensive, impossible to trace PEDs while poorer athletes just got standard steroids.

Sounds like Victor Conte. maybe this, this, or one of these?

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

Sour Grapes posted:

Sounds like Victor Conte. maybe this, this, or one of these?

I don't think so, it had a black background is all I remember. I am going to give these a read though so thanks

BWV
Feb 24, 2005


I was hoping someone would bring some of this up but I guess I'll bite the bullet and expose myself to the collective rage.

My main issues with the anti-doping argument are:

1) it plays very loose with the terms "natural" and "fair", two concepts that are treated as inherent conditions but in reality are entirely contextual/cultural and have changed drastically over history (and significantly in recent years).
2) Where we draw the line on what is "safe" for athletes. For many sports causing trauma to the body is an essential part of being an athlete. The very nature of some sports force individuals to put a lifetimes worth of stress on the body over a 5-10 year period. We are more or less okay with a player being unable to walk properly for a long time, or suffer significant memory loss, but not with them increasing their risk of heart trouble? Seems somewhat arbitrary at times...
3) The "think of the children" argument is problematic because it suggests that kids don't already significantly sacrifice aspects of their future (both in terms of missed educational opportunities and physical ailments) ) in aspiring to play professional sports. Should children feel obliged to inject their body with steroids to reach their dreams? Of course not. But should children feel obliged to run outside until they vomit in the sun for the same dreams? Probably not either. The point is that becoming a professional athlete is an insane aspiration that requires a stupid amount of sacrifice. This argument also assumes that it's a good idea that kids aspire to become athletes which is probably stupid.
4) Professional sports are not noble. Pro sports are not places we should be looking for morality, integrity, or all that other stuff that old baseball and hockey writers use to describe great players.I love pro sports. But the idea that the entire enterprise is based on fairness, and justness, and morality, and worse, a meritocracy is insane. Pro sports are about a labour force, often freaks and sociopaths, doing crazy things inside the loose context of a game. And they rule.

In general I get why people are instinctively against doping. And when pushed to extremes, sometimes I am too. But it seems to me that many of the issues we have with doping are at their roots issues with the professionalization of sport.

I'm probably going against the grain here but I'd be happy for you all to tell me why I'm wrong. Try not to get stuck in criticizing some of my analogies which could probably be made better with more thought, but instead tell me what is fundamentally wrong with my thinking. I'll hang up and listen.

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.

BWV posted:

I was hoping someone would bring some of this up but I guess I'll bite the bullet and expose myself to the collective rage.


You won't. SAS seems to be reasonably pro-doping.

ElwoodCuse
Jan 11, 2004

we're puttin' the band back together
SAS isn't pro-doping, it's anti-bullshit. The witch hunts against Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez were laughable.

Bonds stands a good chance of getting his federal conviction reversed too btw

Kibner
Oct 21, 2008

#1 Pelican Fan
No, there is a contingent of posters that is all for controlled doping. Especially when it comes to things like using HGH for recovery.

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
Fairness is weird because some people get lucky with genetics and can compete and others can't. I don't know why thats ever brought up in doping conversations because with doping, someone who benefits from doping more can use what is essentially a healthy amount to get all the benefits they need and be fine while others take absolutely massive amounts to get the same effect and will die at a really young age as a result. Genetics you get what you're given and I think pro dopers or anyone who is sympathetic at least to dopers massively over estimates how much genetics play a part. Those are all rare sports where genetics have such a huge impact that you're poo poo out of luck otherwise. Yeah all long distance runners are East African and sprinters are West African or whatever it is. Training and having access to good training costs money that most people don't have but they're both really different to being able to take as much of a drug as possible to compensate for your disadvantages elsewhere in the knowledge it'll shorten your life span and everyone should be able to see that being able to train all the time is different to taking a drug

Tacier
Jul 22, 2003

TelekineticBear! posted:

Every single one of them is, if you're in the top 20 in the world, you're on PEDs

I can't actually tell if you're being serious, but that's a pretty extraordinary claim to make without a shred of evidence. For sure doping happens in tennis and every sport, but making sweeping statements like this casts unfair aspersions on a lot of clean athletes.

Tacier fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 2, 2014

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
You should assume every top athlete is doping tbh

TelekineticBear!
Feb 19, 2009

Tacier posted:

I can't actually tell if you're being serious, but that's a pretty extraordinary claim to make without a shred of evidence. For sure doping happens in tennis and every sport, but making sweeping statements like this casts unfair aspersions on a lot of clean athletes.

clean athletes arent beating doped ones, either they're all clean or the top ones are all dirty

stickyfngrdboy
Oct 21, 2010

ElwoodCuse posted:

SAS isn't pro-doping, it's anti-bullshit. The witch hunts against Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez were laughable.

Bonds stands a good chance of getting his federal conviction reversed too btw

Why were they laughable?

Mornacale
Dec 19, 2007

n=y where
y=hope and n=folly,
prospects=lies, win=lose,

self=Pirates

stickyfngrdboy posted:

Why were they laughable?

They blacklisted the greatest player to play the sport in 75 years, without a positive test to speak of, and then impeded a Federal investigation to find evidence to go outside of the CBA for retribution against another top-20 all-time player.

stickyfngrdboy
Oct 21, 2010

Mornacale posted:

They blacklisted the greatest player to play the sport in 75 years, without a positive test to speak of, and then impeded a Federal investigation to find evidence to go outside of the CBA for retribution against another top-20 all-time player.

I haven't followed baseball in a very long time (when I did watch it Bonds was on his way to Hanks Aaron's record), but I admit I thought it was agreed by almost everyone that he took anabolics. I seem to remember reading a little while ago that he'd admitted using steroids but claimed his trainer lied to him. I don't believe that could happen, personally, but who's to say for certain.

I loved watching him but the fact his batting average increased every season made me wonder even then.

ElwoodCuse
Jan 11, 2004

we're puttin' the band back together

stickyfngrdboy posted:

I seem to remember reading a little while ago that he'd admitted using steroids but claimed his trainer lied to him. I don't believe that could happen, personally, but who's to say for certain.

He was charged with perjury for telling a grand jury he never knowingly took steroids, and the feds lost. That's a huge deal, their conviction rates are in the high nineties. He was convicted of obstruction of justice but even that may soon be wiped out.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/07/02/appeals-court-to-reconsider-barry-bonds-obstruction-of-justice-conviction/

quote:

I loved watching him but the fact his batting average increased every season made me wonder even then.

His numbers don't make sense because he's the best baseball player since Babe Ruth, if not ever.

Mornacale
Dec 19, 2007

n=y where
y=hope and n=folly,
prospects=lies, win=lose,

self=Pirates
It's widely accepted that Bonds used steroids, but given that steroid use was effectively not against the rules for most of his career (it was only disallowed insofar as there was some blanket rule against illegal drugs, without testing or enforcement), there was no way to punish him within the rules. So the owners apparently came to an agreement to refuse to hire him anymore, and now the general establishment are all circlejerking over keeping him out of the Hall of Fame.

Karl Sharks
Feb 20, 2008

The Immortal Science of Sharksism-Fininism

BWV posted:

2) Where we draw the line on what is "safe" for athletes. For many sports causing trauma to the body is an essential part of being an athlete. The very nature of some sports force individuals to put a lifetimes worth of stress on the body over a 5-10 year period. We are more or less okay with a player being unable to walk properly for a long time, or suffer significant memory loss, but not with them increasing their risk of heart trouble? Seems somewhat arbitrary at times...
3) The "think of the children" argument is problematic because it suggests that kids don't already significantly sacrifice aspects of their future (both in terms of missed educational opportunities and physical ailments) ) in aspiring to play professional sports. Should children feel obliged to inject their body with steroids to reach their dreams? Of course not. But should children feel obliged to run outside until they vomit in the sun for the same dreams? Probably not either. The point is that becoming a professional athlete is an insane aspiration that requires a stupid amount of sacrifice. This argument also assumes that it's a good idea that kids aspire to become athletes which is probably stupid.

The things you say here are negatives (injury/wear and tear and putting kids' futures on the hopes on something very hard to achieve), I don't think anyone can disagree, but how do you then conclude that more negative things should be allowed?

I mean it's like saying "oh, people don't take all of their antibiotics, which can lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria, so why stand in the way of just prescribing it to everyone with a sniffle and injecting it into livestock?" You're recognizing harmful aspects that exist and hopefully believe they should be prevented/mitigated while simultaneously adding more harmful things to the mix.

stickyfngrdboy
Oct 21, 2010

ElwoodCuse posted:

He was charged with perjury for telling a grand jury he never knowingly took steroids, and the feds lost. That's a huge deal, their conviction rates are in the high nineties. He was convicted of obstruction of justice but even that may soon be wiped out.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/07/02/appeals-court-to-reconsider-barry-bonds-obstruction-of-justice-conviction/


His numbers don't make sense because he's the best baseball player since Babe Ruth, if not ever.

but he did admit taking them, even if unknowingly, yes?

Tacier
Jul 22, 2003

TelekineticBear! posted:

clean athletes arent beating doped ones, either they're all clean or the top ones are all dirty

If this is actually the prevailing opinion of the thread then I'll just show myself out because that statement, in regards to tennis specifically, sounds completely insane to me. There's no reason a world class clean tennis player couldn't easily beat a doped one in a routine 2 or 3 set victory where the difference in physical conditioning barely comes into play. This is doubly true for a player with an attacking or serve-and-volley style which keeps the points short. I have no trouble believing some of the top guys are doping, but every guy who cracks the top 10? That's almost inconceivable.

Jordan7hm
Feb 17, 2011




Lipstick Apathy
Even if the top 10 were all doping, to say a clean player can't beat a doped player is to massively overstate the power of PEDs.

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.

Tacier posted:

If this is actually the prevailing opinion of the thread then I'll just show myself out because that statement, in regards to tennis specifically, sounds completely insane to me. There's no reason a world class clean tennis player couldn't easily beat a doped one in a routine 2 or 3 set victory where the difference in physical conditioning barely comes into play. This is doubly true for a player with an attacking or serve-and-volley style which keeps the points short. I have no trouble believing some of the top guys are doping, but every guy who cracks the top 10? That's almost inconceivable.

Serve-and-volley has been absurdly neutered due to modern court conditions- stamina, the quality almost certainly most susceptible to being improved by doping, is about as important as it has ever been in the history of the sport.

Dejan Bimble
Mar 24, 2008

we're all black friends
Plaster Town Cop
There was a big ESPN the magazine poll of NFL players, and one of the questions was "How many players are doping" and the answer was like 25-30%. Even assuming large understatement, that means that less than half of players are doing what they consider to be illegal doping. I think it's fair to stretch that for most American team sports.

Endurance sports like cycling are totally different, but there are plenty of riders who don't use anything.

Even in the glory days of amphetamines in baseball, use wasn't 100%.

Where is it 100%? World's Strongest Man, Mr Olympia, sports that are only about muscles.

Dejan Bimble fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Jul 3, 2014

Byolante
Mar 23, 2008

by Cyrano4747

WEREWAIF posted:

There was a big ESPN the magazine poll of NFL players, and one of the questions was "How many players are doping" and the answer was like 25-30%. Even assuming large understatement, that means that less than half of players are doing what they consider to be illegal doping. I think it's fair to stretch that for most American team sports.

Endurance sports like cycling are totally different, but there are plenty of riders who don't use anything.

Even in the glory days of amphetamines in baseball, use wasn't 100%.

Where is it 100%? World's Strongest Man, Mr Olympia, sports that are only about muscles.

Cycling is totally different now because of 10+ years of gradually cracking down on doping to the point now they use the biological passport. Its laughable to say that the top athletes aren't at the very least being pressured into using PEDs.

Jordan7hm
Feb 17, 2011




Lipstick Apathy

Byolante posted:

Cycling is totally different now because of 10+ years of gradually cracking down on doping to the point now they use the biological passport. Its laughable to say that the top athletes aren't at the very least being pressured into using PEDs.

Of course they are. That doesn't mean they're using them. In a lot of cases, I think it would simply be a "risk is too great if I get caught" type of thing stopping them, rather than any kind of moral or health related reason.

The guys who aren't doping are (probably) the ones who haven't been seriously injured yet, who are still in the peak of their career age-wise, and who are still progressing. There's no reason to take roids if you're already hitting 30 homers a year at 24. A few years later when you have an off year, or you get injured, or you want to get that big contract to set yourself up for life? That's maybe time to reassess.

ElwoodCuse
Jan 11, 2004

we're puttin' the band back together
The best doping story was when some baseball player said 50% of the league was doping and then Rickey Henderson said "Well, I'm not, so maybe it's 49%."

Byolante
Mar 23, 2008

by Cyrano4747

Jordan7hm posted:

Of course they are. That doesn't mean they're using them. In a lot of cases, I think it would simply be a "risk is too great if I get caught" type of thing stopping them, rather than any kind of moral or health related reason.

The guys who aren't doping are (probably) the ones who haven't been seriously injured yet, who are still in the peak of their career age-wise, and who are still progressing. There's no reason to take roids if you're already hitting 30 homers a year at 24. A few years later when you have an off year, or you get injured, or you want to get that big contract to set yourself up for life? That's maybe time to reassess.

That is a staggeringly poor understanding of the issue as it stands

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/sports/28doping.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1404360643-t9ny0a42H5GxLj2ZBPkU5g

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Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer

Jordan7hm posted:

Even if the top 10 were all doping, to say a clean player can't beat a doped player is to massively overstate the power of PEDs.

Of course a clean player can beat a doped player, its how Nadal and the like lose to randoms fairly regularly, but over the course of a tournament someone who is doping has a far greater chance of winning it thanks to the increased endurance they have

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